Five aspects of pre-school experience were considered to explore whether pre-school centre experience shows any continuing effect on Year 6 cognitive attainment: attendance at a pre- school centre compared to no pre-school, type of pre-school centre, duration, quality and effectiveness. In a further sub-section the combined impact of Early years HLE and pre-school experience is also investigated (see Figure 4.1 for an illustration of the analysis strategy). The presentation of these complex results focuses on effect sizes and charts that are also easy to understand by those not familiar with advanced statistical modelling. Further details on estimates and their standard errors for the predictors in the final models can be found in Appendix 6 (Tables A.6.3 – A.6.21).
Figure 4.1: Strategy of statistical analysis of net pre-school effects
The Impact of Pre-School Attendance, Duration of Pre-School Experience and Type of Pre- School
In Year 6, there are significant net effects on attainment in English and Mathematics for the most basic indicator: attendance at a pre-school centre compared to no pre-school, ES=0.22 and
ES=0.26, respectively. The impact of pre-school attendance is consistent with findings for Year 2. However, analysis of cognitive data in Year 5 did not identify any impact of pre-school attendance per se; however it is important to note that the sample of no pre-school (home) children available for Year 6 analysis, as opposed to Year 5, increased from 237 to 276, while the total sample itself increased by almost 150 individuals. It is possibly due to the reduced sample size available for Year 5 analysis (where schools conducted additional assessments for the research rather than the National assessments studied in Year 6 ) that an effect related to pre-school versus no pre-school was not identified (as a larger sample facilitates the identification of smaller effects), in contrast to the Year 6 results.
The general pre-school effect identified above can be further explained by particular features of the pre-schools themselves. Further significant differences were found for English in relation to type of pre-school attended, as opposed to none: Nursery Class (ES=0.10); Playgroup (ES=0. 22); Private day nurseries (ES=0.28); Local authority day nurseries (ES=0.20); Nursery School
(ES=0.35); and Combined Centres (ES=0.18). All showed significant differences except Nursery Classes and Combined Centres. When compared to Private Day Nursery of those children who went to pre-school only children who attended Nursery classes had poorer attainment (ES=0.18).
A broadly similar pattern was evident for Mathematics: Nursery Class (ES=0.20); Playgroup (ES= 0.26); Private day nurseries (ES=0.31); Local authority day nurseries (ES=0.28); Nursery Schools (ES=0.30); and Combined Centres (ES=0.22). All showed significant differences except
Combined Centres. When compared to Private day nurseries of those children who went to pre- school no children had poorer attainment.
Moderate to strong effects at entry to primary school (age 5) and in Years 1 and 2 (ages 6 and 7 respectively) were identified for duration (in months) of children‟s pre-school experience. At the
Child Factors Family Factors Home Learning Environment
READING
MATHEMATICS
Pre-SchoolENGLISH
end of Year 6 duration (in months of attendance) of pre-school in terms of English proved statistically significant for each of the measured time periods, as opposed to no pre-school, with the exception of the greatest duration - Over 36 months, although the ES was comparable: Months 0-12 (ES=0.23); Months 12-24 (ES=0.20); Months 24-36 (ES=0.24); Months Over 36 (ES=0.20). In terms of Mathematics each time period proved statistically significant when compared to „no pre-school‟: Months 0-12 (ES=0.28); Months 12-24 (ES=0.24); Months 24-36 (ES=0.26); Months Over 36 (ES=0.32). In contrast to earlier findings there was no clear trend in terms of longer duration of pre-school necessarily showing an advantage, supporting the conclusion that, controlling for background, the main difference in effect relates to a significant advantage to attending pre-school versus not attending.
The Impact of Pre-school Centre Quality
Results at earlier time points pointed to the positive impact of higher quality pre-school provision on cognitive outcomes. Analyses divided the sample into groups of children whose pre-school experience could be classified as ranging from no quality (i.e. the „home‟ group, approximately 10% of the sample) through low (15%), medium (52%) and high quality (23%), based on individual pre-school centres‟ ECERS-E scores – this being a measure of the educational quality of the pre- school setting. The results in Year 6 indicate that there are statistically significant differences in attainment in both English and Mathematics between the „home‟ children and both the medium and high quality groups.
In terms of English the experience of high quality pre-school provision shows a positive impact on attainment at the end of Year 6 (ES=0.29) compared to the experience of a „home‟ children (see Figure 4.2), although attending a medium quality centre also had a significant impact (ES=0.22). The difference between „home‟ children and those children who went to a low quality pre-school were not significantly worse (no statistically significant differences)
Figure 4.2: The impact of quality of pre-school on attainments in English and Mathematics at Year 6 0.12 0.22 0.29 0.12 0.26 0.34 0.00 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50
Low Quality Medium Quality High Quality
English Mathematics Net Effect of Quality (ECERS-E) of Pre-School
on English and Mathematics at Age 11
Effect Si z e Reference Group: Home Children
In terms of Mathematics the effects for both medium and high quality provision compared to „home‟ children are stronger than for English, and both are statistically significant, ES=0.26 and ES=0.34, respectively (see Figure 4.2). Again children who stayed at home had the lowest ES but the results were not statistically significant different to those in low quality pre-school centre group.
However, comparing the „home‟ children and the low and medium quality pre-school groups to the „high quality‟ group for both English and Mathematics indicated that both „home‟ children and low quality group performed significantly worse: English „home‟ children: ES=0.29; low quality group ES= 0.17; Mathematics „home‟ children: ES=0.34; low quality group ES=0.21.
We can conclude that for both English and Mathematics attending a high quality pre-school is associated with significantly enhanced attainment compared to no pre-school or low quality pre- school, and for Mathematics medium quality pre-schools are also associated with enhanced attainment: the ES are comparable in size to the effects of gender and eligibility for FSM, for comparison.
The Impact of Pre-school Centre Effectiveness
The value added analysis of the cognitive attainment of children who attended a pre-school, controlling for their prior attainment at entry to the study and background influences, produced estimates of pre-school centre effectiveness (value added residuals which measure relative gains over the pre-school period compared to those predicted by the multilevel model). For details of these analyses, see Sammons et al. (2002). Examples of more and of less effective centres were found within each type of provision. For this reason, in tracking the potential continuing influence of pre-school on later attainment at age 11, residual measures of pre-school centre effectiveness were analysed in the same way as those adopted for the study of pre-school observed quality. In order to establish whether the effectiveness of the pre-school setting attended shows any
continuing impact on later attainment up to the end of KS2, further multilevel analyses were
conducted on the Year 6 English and Mathematics outcomes. In these analyses pre-school centre effectiveness, in terms of promoting young children‟s progress in Pre-Reading, was tested as a potential predictor for later English attainment and pre-school centre effectiveness, in terms of promoting young children‟s progress in Early number concepts, was tested as a predictor for later Mathematics attainment.
Figure 4.3: The impact of pre-school effectiveness (Pre-Reading) on attainment in English at Year 6: ‘home’ children as reference group
0.20 0.25 0.22 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.4
Low Medium High
Net Effect of Pre-School Effectiveness (Pre-Reading) on English at Age 11 Effect Si z e Pre-School Effectiveness Reference Group: 'Home' Children
Controlling for child, family and HLE influences, the results indicate that measures of centre effectiveness still show a positive „net‟ impact on children‟s attainment in both English and Mathematics at Year 6 (see Figures 4.3 - 4.6).
Figure 4.4: The impact of pre-school effectiveness (Pre-Reading) on attainment in English at Year 6„: children at low effective schools as reference group
-0.19 0.07 0.03 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
Home Children Medium High
Net Effect of Pre-School Effectiveness (Pre-Reading) on English at Age 11 Effect Si z e Pre-School Effectiveness Reference Group: Low Effectiveness
In terms of English attainment, compared to „no pre-school‟, children who went to low medium or highly effective pre-schools have significantly higher attainment (see Figure 4.4).
The same analysis was re-run but the low effectiveness pre-school group replaced the „home‟ children as comparison group: this allowed any differences in the impact of differing degrees of effectiveness to be gauged. Figure 4.5 shows that for English the differences are minor, further they do not reach significance, only the „„home‟ children‟ – who have lower attainment - differ significantly (ES=-0.19).
Figure 4.5: The impact of pre-school effectiveness (early number concepts) on attainment in Mathematics at Year 6:‘home’ children as reference group.
0.24 0.40 0.21 -0.1 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Low Medium High
Net Effect of Pre-School Effectiveness (Early Numbers) on Mathematics at Age 11 Effect Si ze Pre-School Effectiveness Reference Group: 'Home' Children
For Mathematics compared to „no pre-school‟, children who went to low, medium or high effective pre-schools have significantly higher attainment (Figure 4.5). However, when comparison is made
with low pre-school effectiveness, the „home‟ children have significantly lower scores (ES=-0.25), and the high effectiveness group have significantly higher scores (ES=0.16) (Figure 4.6).
Figure 4.6: The impact of pre-school effectiveness (early numbers concepts) on attainment in Mathematics at Year 6: children at low effective schools as reference group.
-0.25 0.16 -0.05 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Home Children Medium High
Net Effect of Pre-School Effectiveness (Early Numbers) on Mathematics at Age 11 Effect Si z e Pre-School Effectiveness Reference Group: Low Effectiveness